Facilitating Access to Comparative Data

Mandate of the ZA as part of a Social Science Infrastructure The Central Archive for Empirical Social Research (ZA) at the University of Cologne serves as a research, training and resource center for social research. Founded in 1960 by the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Cologne, it soon developed into a data service with a supraregional and international clientele. As a central node in the international data service network it became the starting point for a more comprehensive social science infrastructure, the German Social Science Infrastructure Services (GESIS e. V.). This association was created as a response to needs formulated by the social science profession in 1986 to provide infrastructural services in all fields of social research with particular emphasis on: